Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

INDIANAPOLIS – Jimmie Johnson wants to kneel down and kiss the Indy bricks for a fifth time.

He wants a record-tying seventh NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.

And he wants to do it all — for now, forever — with Hendrick Motorsports and trusted crew chief Chad Knaus calling the shots.

Johnson and Knaus have yet to sign contract extensions with the only organization they have called their professional home, though Johnson called a new deal nothing more than a formality.

Unfortunately for the rest of the field, there’s no sign that NASCAR’s most successful team is on the verge of a breakup.

“We are obviously not concerned,” Johnson said Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “We have been getting things buttoned up with Lowe’s, with Hendrick, with Chad and myself, all of that.”

Lowe’s is the primary sponsor on Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet and has long partnered with team owner Rick Hendrick and the driver who won five straight series championships from 2006-10 and a sixth in 2013. Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt share the record with seven.

He long ago usurped Jeff Gordon as the most decorated champion on the Hendrick roster.

Johnson just can’t unseat Gordon as the most popular driver at the ol’ Brickyard.

Indy is still Gordon’s house and the five-time winner is trying to go back-to-back and win one of NASCAR’s marquee races Sunday in his final full season.

“I’m not glad to see him go,” Johnson said. “It’s been so exciting to watch Jeff win here, all the success that he’s had here. Even how crazy this place has been when (Tony) Stewart has won here, it’s cool to see the fans get behind their guy.”

Gordon was feted with a parade Thursday in his hometown of Pittsboro, Indiana, where he was presented with Indiana’s highest civilian award and became an honorary member of the local police department.

He grew up thinking he’d race at Indy in an open wheel car.

So did Johnson, a California kid who would rearrange the couch cushions so he could pretend he was sitting in a race car and called Indy great Rick Mears one of his childhood favorites.

“My whole world was the Indy 500,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s career path, though, very early steered toward stock cars and he eventually rumbled down the straightaway in a vehicle with a roof.

“I wanted to be here and race in an open wheel car,” Johnson said. “NASCAR, just with the television package and media coverage then, it wasn’t all that popular, especially in the ‘70s and ‘80s when I was coming up. My whole direction and kind of guidance from Chevrolet was to move from off road trucks, to Trans Am, to Indy Lights to IndyCar.”

Johnson and Mears share a slice of Brickyard history, with each driver winning his sport’s signature Indy race four times. Race fans love to debate the records — are Gordon and Formula One ace Michael Schumacher’s five victories comparable to the four Indy 500s won by Mears, A.J. Foyt and Al Unser?

Johnson, eighth all-time with 74 wins in NASCAR’s top series, can’t even compare winning at Indy to winning the Daytona 500.

“To win here, granted it’s in a different vehicle, but it still has so much meaning to me because I sat on the couch watching it for years, the 500 with my dad and my grandfather and it really was the race for me growing up,” Johnson said. “Clearly, I learned about Daytona later on and have been very fortunate to experience both. It’s hard to pick one.”

Even with a new rules package that produces higher drag in an effort to improve passing opportunities, Johnson remains a favorite to win No. 5 on Sunday.

Close. Johnson and Gordon have won nine of 21 races since NASCAR stormed Indy for the first time in 1994.

F1: Lotus had a frustrating day on and off the track Friday at the Hungarian Grand Prix with race tires arriving late, followed by a disappointing two practice sessions for drivers Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado.

Lotus, which faced a winding-up petition earlier this month, is under pressure as it settles debts with creditors.

The team received its allocation of Pirelli race tires only one hour before practice began on Friday.

Once it got underway, Maldonado finished down in 17th, while reserve driver Jolyon Palmer — replacing Grosjean for the morning — managed only four laps.

Grosjean, who went out in the afternoon session and placed 15th, says the financial strain “is not ideal.”

F1 crash: Sergio Perez says he was relieved after walking away unscathed from a crash at the Hungaroring circuit that left him upside down in his car after it hit a barrier.

A suspension problem on his Force India car caused Friday’s crash in a practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The incident happened on Turn 11 during the morning’s first session.

While less spectacular than his big crash in qualifying coming out of a tunnel at the Monaco GP four years ago, which left him with a concussion and an injured thigh, it still left the 25-year-old Mexican driver shaken.

Perez says “when I rolled over I got a little bit scared,” adding that he quickly phoned his family “to keep everyone calm.”